“What is She Doing in Rwanda Again?” Part II

 
What am I doing here?

What am I doing here?

What am I doing here?

What am I doing here?

What am I doing here?

Enough with the “Eat, Shoots, and Leaves”?  Fair enough.  However, all apply and all are some of the things I wonder about as I ride a moto out to a school over bumpy iron red roads, walk down the streets of Nyamata to a chorus of, “Muzungu,” text a head teacher asking if I can please work with their school, pull into a school of 2,000 students as a quarter of them seem to flood out of their classrooms to surround me pushing each other out of the way to get a chance to touch my skin, pull at my hair, or shake my hand, teach a lesson with a teacher in a room so simple and dark that I can’t see what some of the children have written, spend time trying to get my somewhat rigid language brain to learn to communicate in Rwanda’s mother tongue Kinyarwanda, or try to make peace with the army of cockroaches that don’t know any better than to not get stuck in the shower drain.



Teacher Workshop



What I am officially doing here is working with Bugesera District’s Department of Education as a Primary Methodology Trainer through CUSO-VSO.  Primary Methodology Trainers work in a variety of ways within CUSO-VSO, but I like to think of myself as a member of the band of moto riding teacher trainers motoring around the countryside visiting schools to help teachers with their teaching and carrying a backpack full of locally made teacher and student goodies to enhance the educational experience of all students.



Using rice sacks for posters.



A typical day working as a methodology trainer with a school district is to hop on a moto at 7:00 a.m. and enjoy the hour, or more, long ride over rather rough roads and through very small villages.  Arrive at a school that seems so remote you can’t believe a school exists there, dust yourself off as the masses of children run out to warmly greet you and wish you a good morning.  Shortly there after greet a teacher will shoo the students back to class and give you an equally warm greeting and walk you to the teachers’ room.  From there you will organize yourself for either observing a teacher in order to give them feedback on their lesson, co-plan and co-teach a lesson with a teacher, teach a lesson for teachers to observe, and/or give a workshop on active, participatory, learner centered strategies and methodology.  Lunch is often provided by the school and eaten with the staff and sometimes their children. When the work is done at the school it is time to hop back onto the moto as all the students swarm yet again to wish you a safe journey home and run a few hundred yards with the moto as you leave.  Arriving back in town anywhere from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. where, after paying the moto driver who has waited all day to take you back home, your first order of business upon arriving home will likely be to take a cold shower and be happy for it. 

Photo courtesy of another volunteer

That is a typical day.  On a few rare days, you may be in the office preparing for a weekend workshop, attending a head teachers’ meeting, or traveling to Kigali for a meeting there.  On the days that you are in the office you will meet a lot of head teachers and teachers with paperwork to sign, a few students who need a grant for secondary school, or a few parents who need to enroll their students.  Why would a secondary (high school) student need a grant?  Perhaps a little background on the Rwandan educational system I am working in would be helpful here.

Primary education in Rwanda is free for only the first nine years as of 2009, and attendance in the first few years is generally high.  However, attendance drops in the next six years as students can not go on to the next level unless they have passed the previous year’s exams.  Students are also often pulled from class to help with farm work at home or for some other similar reason and are unable to attend school and either fall behind or do not return.  Therefore, within one grade level class the ages can vary significantly.  I have seen students that appear to be well into their teens in grade three or four classes, and happy and proud to be there. Class sizes are meant be a maximum of 49 pupils, however, the recent district wide class average was given to be at 65.  In an attempt to reduce class size and educate as many children as possible most schools practice, double vocation, meaning the teachers teach a morning shift and get a whole new set of students for an afternoon shift. 

Photo courtesy of another volunteer

Because resources are very limited in every classroom teaching materials usually consist of a blackboard and chalk, therefore, teaching is still very much a teacher centered affair with the teacher up at the chalkboard teaching and the students in their desks listening or answering a few routine questions. Classrooms are very basic with the range of quality seeming to be based on how recently they were built.  However, whether a new kiln-fired brick classroom with windows or a mud brick classroom with wooden shuttered windows, all seem to have three students to a bench seat desk and very, very little access or money for any materials beyond chalk.  Primary school teachers will come from secondary schools or Teacher Training Colleges and have a general secondary education with little practical experience, and this is where CUSO-VSO comes in.  On the invitation of educational ministries that have recognized the need for more teacher training, people like me are working in Teacher Training Colleges and school districts in an attempt to encourage a more active, learner centered, and participatory methodology using locally found materials at the primary level. 

While I am sure that has not answered fully what I am doing here, I hope it is an adequate start.  I hope to write more in the future about what a Rwandan Teacher’s day is like, moto riding, classrooms, tools, work, the loads people carry, feats of strength, and much more.

Included are a few pictures from a workshop on visual aids using rice sacks along with a few other photos of teaching and learning aids made from locally made materials.